Character Questions 2
8 Apr 2016 · page 588 of 1306
Second round of character questions! There'll be some more next Tuesday, then next Friday the cover for the new chapter will go up, though if you support the comic on Patreon for just $3 a month or more, you can see it right now!
I'll be at Emerald City Comic Con all weekend, this is my first-ever con in the US! It won't be every year that I can do one of these, so please stop by and say hello if you can! I'll be at the Cautionary Fables and Fairytales booth, which is #312 on the map, right across from the huge Image Comics booth, and I'll have all five Widdershins books and a few little sketchcards too. Here's a map to where we'll be. Come buy a book, bring me a thing to sign, or just say hello!
Comments (58)
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Oh Harry and Sid you are are so cute that it will cause some random fan to explode and inflicting 5D20 of damage on the surroundings.
...I may have gotten pretty close there. And I have no romance in my heart whatsoever.
...two and a half Dances of Ruin?
Because that's about the only thing that deals d20's of damage in D&D ^.^
This is from 7.2 edition.
Mal is like the best at desummoning sins you know ;)
Gren should definitely get the ham.
Low standards, poor hound. A gooducken is where it's at. :)
A chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a goose? This is being inferred from the more popular State side meal of the turducken.
I volunteer to buy Gren an ideal spouse from the butcher's! Every good dog should have a good ham!
Sid is so, so delightfully naive. I may have actually squee'd out loud. edit: character. blush
"Nah." Mal is great!
God, that's cute.
So, this go around was (almost) all couples? The last one works best, if you imagine them all lined up, rather than page form. Then, their eyes give it all way.
I'm with Mr Thackerey on this one. As the late great Sir Terry said, what you are is not defined by how good you are it (or something like that). Even Rincewind was still a wizard!
And this comic is very educational. I had to look up 'big spoon' too.
You had to look that up? blinks Dude, I'm asexual, and I got it. :\\
However, I suspect somebody else knew, too. And, was trying to sink through the floor. Or, refrain from strangling her partner. Unsure which. ;P
Dude realize slang changes about every 6 months with only a small handful still being a thing 3 years down the road. Add in that slang is also regional and group centered and what you heard may not be heard by someone from somewhere else and part of another group.
Given I've lived on three continents and with about six different English dialects (from Geordie to Ossie -- East Cape English)... Yeah, I know. :)
But "spooning" has been around since well before the '70s in Africa, India and both sides of the pond -- call me daft, but I think you'll also find it in Aus, given some if the films and TV I've heard it crop up in. :/ I think my grandparents knew the term well... And all of them haled from the 1910s and 20s for birth dates. :)
PS: I was being genuinely surprised. It's a low frequency term, sure... But, not down there with "cordwainer". ;)
One can know the term 'spooning' without knowing the term 'big spoon'. Evidence: Me. (I'm not a native speaker of English, though.)
Even though I always assumed 'spooning' was named after how it resembles the configuration in which spoons are placed in the boxes in which cutlery sets are sold and in those boxes, usually spoons of the same size are placed next to each other, I intuitively guessed correctly, that 'big spoon' referred to spooning and specifically to the person in the back. But I don't think I've seen or heard the term before, so I wasn't sure until I've looked it up.
Completely fair but you are still showing regionalism in the term. Here in the States it's not really a term. though spooning is, so it's not very universal. But that's colloquial language for you.
I could say Jeezum Crow and that would be a more common term. though very northern New England, than big spoon over here.
Having lived in many different states, I can assure you that 'Big Spoon' is totally a term in the US and states! It's even used in many popular TV series (Friends, How I Met Your Mother, etc).
Doesn't mean everyone will have come across it, of course, or even have noted it if they did, but it's definitely commonly used across the US and in many countries.
Or it's publicly used and you didn't notice the cases where it wasn't used. Even with your points of notice it's still not a majorly used term in the many of states I've lived in and visited and have friends living in and visiting. Even being used in TV shows is a poor point of showing commonality with actual usage in language since tv sitcom writers tend to use words for the sake of using them frequently without regard to how much they are used. Seinfeld is a great example of this.
Further actually looking up the usage of the term shows that it's a really minor term that your notice has been a bit outsized: [https://books.google.com/ng...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=big+spoon&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbig%20spoon%3B%2Cc0 "https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=big+spoon&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=5&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbig%20spoon%3B%2Cc0")
[https://www.google.com/tren...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=big%20spoon "https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=big%20spoon")
I don't get out much...
Hey, I had to look it up too - no shame in that. I was just as clueless as Sid, but thinking more along the lines of "big cheese".
...and then I looked up 'fork'...
Oh dear.
I'm not looking it up, because Harry's face and my own ability to draw inferences are leading up to a great big sign that says, "NOPE."
That'll learn you -- quick, get it out your head... "four candles" and YouTube. Don't worry: you can trust the two Ronnies (God rest 'em both). :D
Still the funniest sketch of all time, from the days when the BBC did comedy. I can remember its original showing.
The first fine I was really introduced to the concept was with this song :)
[https://m.youtube.com/watch...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iQmgHrSReCM "https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iQmgHrSReCM")
The spoon one, of my gosh XD
I am 95% convinced that Sid knows exactly what the first question means, and is just playing oblivious to mess with Harry.
I don't know. Sid, despite how he acts sometimes, isn't stupid and seems to have a love of his organs being precisely where they are. Messing with Harry may be more risk than he's willing to take on at one time.
Gren-ham. Gram. Yeah, I ship it.
Gren walked sorrowfully down high street. Harry was still asleep, and so there'd be no breakfast for at least as long as that took, which was probably forever. Would that her ennui be assuaged! All seemed bleak and OH MY GOD IS THAT A SQUIRREL NOPE NEVERMIND dark and hopeless.
Something glistened in the corner of her eye. Gren turned... and saw her. The beautiful new ham placed in the butcher shop window. Her beautiful curves were adorned with golden pineapple ringlets, her brown, crispy skin positively shone in the early morning sun.
Gren ran over to the window. "pant pant" She said.
The ham said nothing. She didn't need words to speak right to Gren's heart.
For either an eternity or five minutes (whichever's longer), Gren gazed upon her rosy beauty. They belonged together! How could the cruel, cold, clear wall separate her from her love? Then suddenly, she was taken from the window!
"Bark!" said Gren, panicking. Where was she going? Would she come back? DID THE SQUIRRELS TAKE HER???
A human stepped out of the shop, carrying a large brown-paper package. Gren gave the air a sniff. Her love! She was hidden inside! They were taking her away!
Gren leaped into the air, snatched the package from the evil human (probably working for the squirrels) and ran. She heard shouts behind her but she didn't care. She and ham were together. Together forev-OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM.
This is great!
Although as a minor quibble Gren is female according to the cast page.
Good catch. Gren is now gay for ham.
Haha, I thought it was purposeful.
It's purposeful now. Gren's pronouns were all male at first.
Yeah, original version I wrote Gren as "he." My bad!
And thus, "Widdershins"' first vore slashfic begins.
I had that experience with one of my friends one time. I and her not-yet-boyfriend were just sitting there, listening to her turn ice cream into this horrible joke with no idea.... I don't think we ever explained, just loudly and pointedly changed the subject.
So long as a big fork and spoon are never their suitcase filled with smelly cheese.
Seriously, though. What the heck does "the big spoon" mean?
...Seriously? Okay, sure.
Not to put too fine a point on it... When couples cuddle facing the same direction, the big spoon is the one that surrounds the other.
I know what spooning is, but why would the metaphor use spoons of different sizes? Those don't fit together. The spoon that surrounds the other should be the same size as the spoon that... er... doesn't.
I think because it's easier to say than "the outside spoon" and things like "the back spoon" or "the top spoon" are inaccurate or conjure different connotations.
Besides which it seems to me that the taller member of the couple is more naturally "the big spoon" because then nobody's face is weirdly pressed between anybody else's shoulderblades and both parties have a clear field of vision.
You know, only after re-reading this five-month-old thread did I realize that this metaphor doesn't actually make sense: "big spoon" and "little spoon" sounded perfectly fine for me at the time I learned them. xD
I can recommend the Urban Dictionary for all the latest buzz in totally hip comics like this one.
[http://www.urbandictionary....](http://www.urbandictionary.com/ "http://www.urbandictionary.com/")
You may find yourself going 'Ew' quite a lot.
Nice to meet you!
You seem younger than I pictured.
Thanks for signing my books!
Nice to meet you too! Haha, I'm actually in my thirties, I just have a baby-face that gets me IDed a lot. Hope you had a great con!
It was great to meet you! Given our relative heights, I almost convinced my spouse to do Harry/Sid with me, but, alas, I failed.
Very cool to see you too, it was so neat to meet so many of the commenters from here! Love to put a face to a name.
Hello! I'm no english speaker, could any charitable soul explain the "big spoon" and "fork" joke to me? :3 hope I was clear enough xD
I think the "big spoon" expression is a mildly adult way to describe how two people like to cuddle together. (Just to be clear, we're talking about something very innocuous and mild, here. However, I'm not sure I should say any more, sorry! ...Are you 18 or older?) o_O
Are Jack and Ben an item?
There are a lot of "items" that their relationship is similar to, but none of them are particularly complimentary
"Spooning" in the 20s meant canoodling. Kissing, etc. Songs loved it, because the romantic rhyming with moon, June, etc.
"Someone who speaks her mind and knows what she wants." So, funny how there's this driven, outspoken new detective she just hired in the most recent update, huh.
Mal's answer to the last question is comedy gold!!